Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A photo that appeared in The Hindu of date….
Can you imagine the story behind ….if not, read the article below :

Indian elections are around the corner …. Do you know the
candidates in your constituency…. ~ it could well be a person wielding
considerable influence in the locality due to personality; caste; wealth or any
other reason whom the party is fielding due to ‘winnability’ or someone close
to the leader of the party (from his family !) ~ or some rank outsider, whom
you have not heard before ! ….. those in
Bangalore South know it better … they have an IT billionaire, a rich
entrepreneur, a top bureaucrat – all
rolled in one – a man who had earlier stated that his aim was not politics – it
is Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys,
who has taken the plunge, joining Congress and contesting.

The Aadhar card you got – the Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI) project was headed by him. He reportedly was offered a place at the
Planning Commission but told PM Manmohan Singh of his interest and ended up
issuing ID cards !...… the 12-digit supposedly unique number which the Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
is to be stored in a centralized database and linked to the basic
demographics and bio metric information – photograph, ten fingerprints and iris
– of each individual. Briefly, the National Identification Authority of India
Bill, 2010 introduced in Rajya Sabha on 3 December, 2010 was referred to a
Parliamentary Committee and Aadhar was born reportedly with a view to ensure
that the benefits of centrally sponsored schemes reaches to right person and
not misused.

The Cong. Govt was hell-bent on making its Direct Cash
transfer scheme a grand hit. To make it
a success, Govt linked it to LPG scheme and subsidy and stated that LPG would
be sold at market price and the subsidy would be credited to the bank accounts
thus making the linkage between bank accounts and Aadhaar number. So, from the days of cycle delivery, it moved
that for a refill, one would need - a Bank Account, Aadhar Unique No.; have
link between the two – then pay the high price, later expect the subsidy to be
transferred to their bank account. Then
came the blow from Apex Court
stating that Govt should withhold any social benefits from those who are yet to
get the Aadhar card and not to issue the unique identification card to illegal
immigrants. Surprisingly, the Solicitor
General on behalf of the Govt tendered before the Court that Aadhar was purely
voluntary. Firstpost called the Aadhar
scheme, a Trojan horse gifted by a dysfunctional government which will
ultimately compromise our security without even a figleaf of statutory
protection for our privacy. It has been sold as a means to reach government
benefits to the poor, but it could well end up as one more tool in the hands of
the powerful to exclude some and extract speed money from the rest.

People have had mixed experience –most have harrowing
tales to tell in obtaining Aadhar – having to go repeatedly to the centres and
yet return empty handed for host of reasons including system speed, computer
crash and persons handling not enough competence… also most of the details
sought and provided for were never cared to be incorporated in to the system…

Here is a pathetic tale of a 75 year old as
reported in The Hindu of date… :like 75-year-old Mano Devi, many villagers of Latehar in
Jharkand have been running from pillar to post to get Aadhar card

At 11 am, Mano Devi reached the Garu block
centre, Latehar, in a basket slung from a bamboo stick, carried by two youths
from village Doram, 25 km away. The young men, Bhojendra Singh and Mithu Singh,
went straight to the pragya kendra (IT centre) but Mano Devi was disappointed.
The centre remained closed all day. “My widow pension will be stopped if I do
not have an Aadhaar card,” the 75-year-old Khairwar adivasi told Garu reporter
Ranjit Kumar before starting the four-hour journey to her village at 3.30 p.m.
She has already made three trips to Garu since December last to enrol in
Aadhaar, she said.

Over 5.4 lakh Aadhaar cards, catering to 74
per cent of the district population, have been generated in Latehar. “Seeding”
of beneficiaries account details and Aadhaar is at two per cent of the
population, the lowest in Jharkhand. With over 92 per cent of people living in
villages and large swathes of forests, officials and villagers wonder if their
access to schemes will not be disrupted in the switch to Aadhaar. “Garu has
only one bank branch, and the Mahudanr block, which has no electricity, has two
branches. Over 60 per cent of the district has no mobile connectivity. We
already pointed this out to officials at the head office in Ranchi,” said a district official.

Although the Supreme Court said in its
interim order on September 23, 2013, that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory to
access government schemes, there is confusion on the ground as beneficiaries
believe and say they have been instructed by officials to get their Aadhaar
cards or Enrolment IDs, if they wish to continue accessing public schemes. In
Latehar, beneficiaries say they have paid from Rs 20 to Rs 50 to enroll in Aadhaar, as demanded by enrolment agencies.
“When we reported this to the district officials, they said the agencies were
making quick money for services that should be free. We tried informing the
villagers, but there is a great rush to enrol since everyone fears being left
out,” said Ignacia Gidh, a panchayat representative from Mahuadanr. Latehar’s
District Commissioner Mukesh Kumar said he had received complaints and has
called for a meeting on March 15 to look into the issue. “As there is no
electricity and mobile connectivity in many parts, we are exploring the options
of offline kiosk banking,” he added.